On A Donkey's Hurricane Deck Part 13

Seeking a footing along the fence, I ground innumerable land crabs into the mud, while the peepers in the swampy clearings piped their dismal music. At dusk we waded into the village where a curious throng awaited the sensation of the day. And there we spent the night.

The nearer I approached the Indiana border, the more impoverished appeared the farms and their struggling proprietors. Every other farm-house was the primitive log-cabin, and the barns and outbuildings generally tallied with the house.

A thunderstorm awoke me at day-break; the prospect for my day's tramp was most dismal. After walking six miles, I stopped to talk with a party of gypsies, in camp. Presently a black-eyed gypsy girl issued from a heap of bedding under a tree, and inquired if Mac A'Rony was an ostrich. Her heavy jet-black hair fell in a ma.s.s over her shoulders, and her sparkling eyes did their level best to enchant me, as she asked to tell my fortune.

"How much?" I asked.

Her grizzled sire said fifty cents; the daughter corrected him, saying one dollar. That was too steep for me. I gave Mac the rein and proceeded some distance when the girl called to me, "Twenty-five cents! Come back!" This was an alluring proposition, and I returned. At once dismissing the bystanders, she reached over the fence for my hand, told me to place a quarter in it, then to close and open it. I no sooner obeyed than the coin disappeared, and the gypsy began in a charming manner, as follows:

"That line shows you will live to a good old age. You are to enjoy your best days in the future. Understand me? If your pocket was as big as your heart you would make many others happy. Understand me?" She surely must mean creditors, I thought. "Yes," I answered.

"Shows it in your face," said she. "You have for a long time disliked your business" (that was no lie), "and want to change it.

Understand me? You make friends easily, and wherever you go you are invited to come again. Understand me?" I nodded. "Shows it in your face." I began to think she was reading my countenance instead of my hand.

"Are you married?" she asked. "No, but want to be," I replied.

"Shows it in your face," said she. "A widow lady is in love with you. She has written you, and you will get her letter soon. Her name is Sarah. Understand me?"

"I do not," said I; "I know but one woman named Sarah. Heaven help me if she is after me!"

"Shut your hand now, and make a wish," said the girl.

I did as she bade, and wished long and hard.

"Now open," said she. Her black eyes seemed to pierce my very soul. "You wish to make fame and fortune. Understand me?"

"True, I do," I said to her; that's just what every man wishes, I said to myself. Then she continued:

"You will make fame and fortune in the business you are now in.

Shows it in your face." I wasn't satisfied with that prediction; I preferred the fortune to be in my pocket.

"A kiss is awaiting you from a black-haired girl within two weeks'

time. She loves you. A lot of girls want you, but they can't have you. Understand me?"

"I confess that I don't quite," I answered. "But I wish those poor girls did." And I looked real serious.

"Shows it in your face," she repeated. That fortune teller puzzled me. The quarter's worth of seance at an end, I plodded on toward the Hoosier country with my mute comrades, wondering how much of the fortune would come true.

Soon afterward we got out of the mud area and came to a hard, smooth, broken-stone road. I stopped my donkey and sat down to take off my rubber boots. Just when I got the first shoe on, Mac began to move down the level turnpike. I called, "Whoa, Mac! Huh!!

You long-eared Mephisto!" The jacka.s.s paid no heed, but galloped on, shaking his head and kicking up his heels merrily with the dog in front of him, barking as if he enjoyed Mac's practical joke. By this time I was speeding after the runaway, a boot on one foot, a shoe on the other, and chased a half mile before I caught him.

Then I led him back for my footgear.

Two miles beyond we again struck mud, thick and deep. Observing a little mound covered with long dried gra.s.s, I sat down again to change my footgear. Mac turned and eyed me mischievously, and wobbled his ears, then nodded to Don. I was so absorbed with the idea that he intended to lead me another chase that I failed to hear an ominous sound emanating from underneath my seat. Not until something seemed to burn me did I rise to the occasion, and light out, this time stocking foot, but making less speed through the black and sticky highway than on my former run.

Something less than a million bees swarmed about my head. I ran!

Oh, how I ran! And I would be running still, perhaps, had not a farmer seen me and knocked down the swarm with a section of a rail fence. I was quite out of breath. The hero had only spared my life for future tortures.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_I scrutinized his hat inquisitively._"]

After considerable search, I found boots and shoes, but failed to see either dog or donkey. Putting on my boots, I hung my shoes on the fence, and set out on the trail of the fugitives, which appeared to have gone into the brush. I waded into the thicket, calling Don all the time, and at last was rewarded. He leaped at me delightedly, and barked, and tugged at my trouser legs, and piloted me to the terrified donkey which I found tangled in a ma.s.s of wild raspberry bushes, his head tucked between his forelegs, and his back doubled up like a cat at bay. There were no bees on Mac.

That was a hot experience, for a raw March day. I plodded on through the mire to the house, whose proprietor had come to my rescue. The dooryard was filled with hives.

"Regular bee ranch," I remarked, pleasantly, though I burned uncomfortably.

"Yas. Right smart business," the man returned.

"You're right; bees do a smart business."

"Lived on 'em nigh ten years."

"You must find them a hot diet!" I said. "I lived on a nest of them less than half a minute and nearly burned up."

"I reckon so," he replied with a chuckle. "I saw yer scorchin'."

It was 2:30 P. M. when we crossed the state line. The first sight that greeted my eyes in Indiana was a flock of Ohio geese just ahead of us, being driven by a hoosier.

"Fine drove of geese you've got there," I said to the man.

"Yaw," he answered. "But Ohio geese is peculiar. Gooses won't run with th' ganders."

"No?" I queried. "What's the reason they won't?"

"Wall, jest th' way they's built. Won't run--jest fly, er waddle."

"What most all geese do, don't they?" I asked, much amused.

"Yaw," reiterated the hoosier, grinning; "jest fly, or waddle."

CHAPTER XVI.

Get money; still get money, boy, no matter by what means.--_Ben Jonson._

Indiana swamps, woodland, corn fields and log cabins were not unlike those of Ohio. On arriving in New Haven two hours after dark, I was quite tired out, and I think my companions were, too.

We had tramped all day without dinner over a road alternately hard and muddy. I would have stopped to rest at a small place called Zulu, but the name sounded so cannibalistic that I looked to my firearms and hurried past.

Next day I registered in Fort Wayne. After calling on the genial Mayor, I set out to inspect the city and see what my chances were, for I found the outlook for my delivering a lecture discouraging, and, although for several days I had barely made expenses, did not attempt money-making there.

Fort Wayne is notable for its great car-shops and the Indiana School for the Feeble Minded. In the morning I boarded a car and rode a mile and a half out of town to the latter. The large building of brick and terra cotta, viewed in its expansive setting of well-groomed lawn and gay parterres, presented a picture of architectural beauty.

The superintendent welcomed me cordially, although it was not visitors' day, and graciously showed me through the interesting inst.i.tution. Its neatness, the clock-work regularity with which the several departments are conducted, and the great variety and detail of the mode of instruction given the 550 idiotic inmates were a revelation to me. Many of the advanced scholars were making and mending their clothes and bedding; something I couldn't do, I fear. The idiots are carefully attended day and night. Never before did I see a natural-born bald-headed person. Here was one, a funny-looking girl, and I was told she had several brothers, sisters, parents, uncles and aunts, all bald from birth--a distinguished family indeed. I wondered whether her disappointment was as great as that of Pye Pod, who once possessed a head of hair, then lost it. I have heard it said people who never had money know not its value, and presume its so with their heirs.

For mortals deprived of reason the place is surprisingly quiet.

The halls are tiled, the floors of the rooms are waxed, and all are so slippery that the inmates are unable to romp, which is probably the reason for such stillness. Whenever they gain sense enough to be boisterous like sane and healthy children, they instantly fall on their craniums on the polished floor and are rendered insensible.